JAY YEO

SANEBUTDIFFERENT

Following a story by Digiday on Facebook, I stumbled upon the excellent report by Craig Silverman about how fake news spreads online, especially in the face of rapid-publishing media outlets. You can download it here.

I highly recommend everyone who works in journalism, digital publishing or any related fields to read the entire report. But in the interest of providing a TL;DR version, here are some insights and actionable takeaways.

In dealing with breaking unverified content on the internet, many newsrooms rush to get the eyeballs and in the process make these mistakes:

Treating journalism as an act of pointing — reporting that this rumour is what’s out there now, instead of reporting verified truths. By reporting like this, they are giving the rumour credibility via the brand, spreading misinformation. Media outlets also points to one another as their source and confirmation, so one false report sets off a chain reaction of more false reports.

Lack of follow-up on false reports — newsrooms often just grab eyeballs and move on to the next story, leaving false reports in the archive un-updated.

Declarative headlines on stories with unverified claims — headlines declare a statement or use a question like “Did….happen?” but use hedging words like “reportedly”, “claim”, “purportedly” in the story. This misleads and confuses readers, especially when people scan headlines on their news feed without clicking into the story.

Observations:

Stories get more shares in the unverified rumour stage than when it has been confirmed, contributing to newsrooms’ temptation of quick and dirty reporting

Fake news articles generate more shares and social interactions than debunking articles. It took 10 large UK news websites to debunk a single fake news article. 60k shares on fake news, 60k shares total on all the debunking stories.

Strategies for newsrooms:

Newsrooms need a standard operating procedure for unconfirmed stories — workflows, choice of language/words, special website templates and headline conventions to clearly show that it is not verified.

Use SEO, clickable headlines and other traffic-generating tactics to debunk fake stories because speed and efficiency is key in fighting misinformation here. Fight fire with fire.

When a story is verified to be false, putting an “(UPDATE)” in the headline is not enough and even more damaging in spreading falsity.

Beware of cognitive challenges — inspirational and heartwarming stories e.g. sweaters for penguins are hard to debunk because people engage in “wishful thinking” and hope for it to be true. Emotions > Facts, people may not respond well.

Debunk the idea, not the person.

Be transparent in debunking — show how you found the story, why you suspect it’s not true, the methods used to find the facts.

Be very skeptical about stories and use fact-checking tools to back up.

Avoid double-hedging —

“Wednesday Apple Rumors: Apple May Be Ready to Buy Path”

“Report: Possible audio tape of Michael Brown shooting”

It’s possible that conversational headlines are more effective for those scanning them quickly on social media. They strike a tone that may be more memorable; they are also geared toward eliciting an emotional response. For example, the headline “Calm down everyone, Banksy hasn’t been arrested: 9 clues that it’s a hoax” seems engineered to create a sense of relief. Or it potentially aims to align with the reader’s disgust at yet another online hoax. In either case, this may help drive reader action.

Quartz broke the story saying “Durex will neither confirm or deny the pumpkin spice condom.”

Elite Daily, Uproxx, PR Newser picked up and reported.

BuzzFeed published story with confirmed denial from Durex.

Quartz updated their story.

Case study takeaways:

It would have been easier and faster for Quartz to simply publish a post noting that people are talking about a possible pumpkin spice condom. That would have been a pure “journalism as an act of pointing” approach. Instead, journalist Heather Timmons decided to reach out to Durex and its PR firm to see if she could answer a key question: Is it real? It was a journalistic approach that didn’t prevent her from being first to the story. The fact that Timmons initially received an uncertain response from the PR firm enabled her to write a story that mentioned the possibility of its being real. (Once proven false, the Quartz story was quickly updated. This story showed that it’s possible to be early to potentially viral content, while still pursuing an element of reporting.But the most representative story came from MTV.com. It earned by far the most shares of any debunking claim. This was in part because its debunking also included suggestions for other amusing (and fake) Durex flavors, such as a Pulled Pork Flavored condom. The fact that the condom wasn’t real didn’t spoil the joke or the opportunity for writers to capitalize on it in articles.In some cases, you can best add value by waiting and choosing not to give breath to a claim. Take time and see if you can be the person to turn up a key piece of evidence for or against it. If others are already propagating a rumor, the opportunity for capturing pointing traffic diminishes. Take an approach to move the story forward and you’re more likely to be rewarded with traffic.Provide a counter narrative — This is one of the most important debunking strategies. The goal is to replace the existing narrative in a person’s mind with new facts. It’s more effective than a piecemeal approach to refuting rumors. Humans are attracted to sto- ries, not a recitation of information. Anthony Pratkanis, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told The Boston Globe that a denial alone isn’t effective. “The more vivid that replacement is, the better,” Pratkanis said.201 Journalists should use all the storytelling tools available to make a debunking compelling and persuasive. Don’t be a spoilsport denier—tell a great story.